Meet the Awesome Artisan Behind this Nerd Herder Wallet

Herd up your nerdaphernalia with Rockitbot’s Nerd Herder gadget wallet—handmade on a 1947 Sears Kenmore sewing machine in the Tyrone, Georgia home studio of Brook Kirk. 

Her husband, a musician and “quite a nerdy fella,” as Brook puts it, was always fumbling around in his bag and pockets for his smartphone, credit card, guitar pick, SD card, whatever.

The inventive solution she devised for him and for all nerds has given the family a valued source of supplemental income and has led to the establishment of one very colorful and incredibly organized home studio which serves as home base for Brook’s company, Rockitbot.

Brook estimates that she has sewn more than 6000 Nerd Herders herself on that 1947 Sears Kenmore machine. But now, as her Etsy business has grown, she has employed some help from a few others in her community who are able to earn a little extra money by joining the nerd herd. Though each individual Nerd Herder is still very much handmade, there is some specialization that allows for a more efficient process. According to Brook, “We totally Henry Forded it up.”

The assistance was certainly welcome, as it allowed for the Rockitbot business to continue and for inventory to grow, even as Brook herself prepared for, underwent and recovered from an August 2012 brain surgery.

Brook is doing great and gets a kick out of hearing how different folks use the gadget wallet in different ways. Travel nerds use it to carry their passport; crafty nerds have been known to use it as a needlebook for their embroidery projects; and “my grandmother loves to rock hers on her walker,” Brook told us.

The unique uses for the herder are one of the many bits of input that Brook considers when developing the names for each distinct style of gadget wallet.  She used to have a style called “The Escape Pod,” because of the way one mom customer described grabbing the wallet (which contained all the real necessities) out of her massive diaper bag to go into a store.  Meanwhile, it also served to protect mom’s smartphone from being coated in applesauce and masticated Cheerios.

In addition to sending “Melon Melody” and “Qwerty"—two of Rockitbot’s more popular styles—our way to share with you, Brook was kind enough to work with us to develop an exclusive Nerd Herder style for mental_floss. We proudly present “Code Blue” and encourage nerds everywhere to get your gadget acts together already with our friend Brook Kirk’s ingenious Nerd Herder.